


Next Year in Paris

by spanglemaker9



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22261909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spanglemaker9/pseuds/spanglemaker9
Summary: BPO has Wolfgang, and the other seven sensates are finally all together for the first time. They’re on their own, facing down a massive, murderous organization bent on their destruction. But this cluster has one or two tricks up their sleeves.
Relationships: Wolfgang Bogdanow/Kala Dandekar
Comments: 10
Kudos: 106





	Next Year in Paris

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this quite a while ago for a charity thing but never got around to posting it. It was mostly written after the end of Season 2 but before the series wrap-up final movie, so it takes place after the cliffhanger episode at the end of S2 but disregards the 2-hour movie.

This is a dream. Even asleep, Kala knows that. He isn't visiting her. They're all on blockers all the time now, so Wolfgang can't come to any of them. It's the only way to stay safe.

This is a dream.

But the dream feels so real. It's Paris, the Paris of her imagination, since she's never been there. Neither has Wolfgang. It was supposed to be theirs, a place untouched by either of their real lives. A place where they could explore each other face-to-face and decide what came next.

She never made it closer than Charles de Gaulle Airport and Wolfgang hadn't made it out of Berlin. At least, not under his own power.

So this city, this room, this bed...it's all in her head.

There are French doors on one wall, and they’re flung open to let the light flood the room. It looks like morning. Sheer white curtains ripple in the breeze, which she can feel dancing across her skin. She's lying on her side, naked, the sheets a rumpled mess around her body. She can feel Wolfgang, the rock-hard warmth of his body pressed up against her, from her shoulders to her knees. His arm lies heavily across her waist.

She wishes this dream had started earlier, before the sex they've obviously just had. It would have been nice to dream about that. But this is good, too, this warm, sated, satisfied aftermath, his arms holding her close, his lips brushing gently against the nape of her neck, his breath ruffling through her tangled hair.

"What are you thinking?" His voice is a low, intimate rasp that she feels as much as she hears. It must be the blockers, her non-dreaming mind says. Even here, in a dream, he can't feel her, which is sad. She wants to know what it feels like, the physical connection along with the mental one, not a single barrier between them.

"I'm thinking I wish this would last forever. I'm thinking I want to disappear with you."

He chuckles, and it sends a tremor down her spine. "Let's do it. Let's disappear. Where should we go?"

He's playing with her, and it's a marvel, Wolfgang like this. No one sees him like this but her. No one knows this side of him.

"We could go to Africa to be with Capheus. Or America with Nomi and Amanita. Or South Korea with Sun. Or Mexico with Lito and Hernando and Dani."

His hand skims up her arm, from her wrist to her shoulder, and then back down. "Sounds good."

She twists in his arms, until they're lying face to face. His blue eyes are washed out to nearly silver by the abundant light filling the room. Despite the golden stubble on his jaw, his face is almost ethereally lovely, and she's amazed all over again that this angel's face can belong to someone who has experienced so much darkness.

"Or we could go somewhere where no one knows us,” she continues. “We could take the train south to Marseilles. It's a port town, right? A crossroads. We could disappear there."

"Easy," he says, humoring her. The corner of his mouth tightens with a small smile, full of affection.

"Or maybe Belize, or Buenos Aires, or—“

"Do you want to?" he says, every trace of humor gone from his voice and his eyes. Wolfgang, being deadly serious, which is very serious indeed.

She hesitates before answering, her eyes darting back and forth between his. "Maybe," she tells him honestly.

"Would you miss it, though? Mumbai?"

She imagines actually doing it--disappearing with Wolfgang--slipping out of her old life like an old coat, and leaving it behind. Leaving behind her parents and her sister, her aunties and uncles and cousins, the restaurant, and Mumbai with all its heat and color and life... and she feels a pang of sorrow that nearly drowns her. Her eyes burn with tears.

Imagining leaving Rajan elicits a pang, too, but it's less sorrow and more overwhelming guilt. It would be like dragging a sharp dagger straight through his life, a kind of cruelty she's not sure she's capable of, despite what she's doing here in Paris.  
  
"What about you?" she says, pushing the impossible question back at him.

He scoffs softly. "Fuck Berlin. There's nothing for me there." But he hesitates, and even without their mental connection, she can feel it, his sorrow. Wolfgang never lets his feelings show on his face, but now, just for a moment, grief steals over his features. “Only Felix," he says at last. "Felix."

  
  
Kala sits bolt upright in bed, suddenly, painfully awake, breathing hard, heart pounding.

The sun-filled Paris apartment is gone, replaced by the dark, decrepit Peckham warehouse in southeast London that they're squatting in. An electric camping lantern next to the mattress on the floor is the only light, but it's enough to illuminate the grimy, cracked windows, the dirty, rubble-strewn floor.

"Felix," she says into the darkness, and the pigeons, which had been roosting peacefully on the metal beams overhead, rustle and coo as she disturbs them.

She slides off the mattress onto the floor and crawls over to the shape lying on the mattress a few feet away. They’ve been taking turns, guarding Whispers and Jonas, and Will is there right now, so Riley is sleeping alone, curled up under a blanket like a little girl, hands tucked under her chin.

“Riley.” She shakes her gently awake.

“What? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“We have to save Felix.”

Riley blinks herself awake. “Wolfgang’s Felix?”

Kala nods frantically. “He’s in danger.”

*

A few minutes later, they’re all assembled, groggy and wiping sleep from their eyes. They’re huddled around an ancient table in what’s passing as a kitchen in this crumbling safe house.

“Why do you think Felix is in trouble?” Will asks.

“He’s there in Berlin, and so is Lila. She knows Felix. She knows he’s connected to Wolfgang.”

“But if he’s not a sensate—“ Nomi begins.

“He’s important to Wolfgang.” Kala places her palms down on the table. “Think about it, what was the only thing Whispers was desperate to keep hidden from us?”

“His family,” Sun says.

“Wolfgang doesn’t have a family,” Kala points out. “He’s got us, but he knows we can take care of ourselves. And he’s got Felix.”

“You think BPO would go after him?” Riley asks.

“I think Felix is the only leverage they might have with Wolfgang, if they needed to apply pressure, if they need to make him talk. They can’t get to us, but Felix is—“

Will finishes her sentence. “A sitting duck.”

“Okay, so what do we do?” Nomi is already looking Felix up online, learning everything she can about him.

“We need to go to Berlin and tell him. About Wolfgang and us.”

Silence meets Kala’s pronouncement.

“And how are we going to do that?” Will asks. “Are we just going to tell him we’re telepathically connected to his best friend, who’s suddenly gone missing? Somehow I doubt he’ll believe us.”

Kala turns to Amanita. “How did Nomi get you to believe her?”

Amanita shrugs. “It’s Nomi. I love her and I trust her. If she said it was true, I wasn’t going to argue.”

Everyone sighs in frustration. “And what about Bug?”

“Believe me.” Nomi rolls her eyes. “Bug’s been _living_ for a story like this. He was desperate to believe it.”

“Then I’ll just have to convince him. I’ll tell him something only Wolfgang would know.” She’s already remembering that day in Felix’s hospital room, when Wolfgang told her how they met.

“Hold on.” Nomi puts a hand on Kala’s arm. “You can’t go to Berlin. BPO has your name now. They’ll be looking for you.”

Kala looks frantically from Nomi to Will to Sun. “I won’t fly. I can take the train, or drive.”

“You’ll still need ID at the border,” Will says.

“I can give you a new identity online,” Nomi says. “But without my gear, I can’t produce a driver’s license or a passport. Not here.”

They all sit back, considering. “So who can go?” Kala presses.

“I’m e-dead,” Nomi says. “I can go.”

“The US government might not be looking for you anymore,” Will points out. “But BPO knows exactly who you are. And this is Europe, not the US. They might still have alerts on you. We’re not risking that.”

“So, who else?”

“BPO’s got eyes on me, Riley, and Kala.” Will ticks off the names on his fingers. “Even on blockers, it’s risky. Who knows what kind of government connections they have?”

“Sun’s got a warrant out for her arrest.” Nomi points out. “She was lucky to make it out of Seoul. But Lito’s clean.”

Lito shakes his head apologetically. “My movies do very well in Germany. I’d probably be recognized.”

Everyone rolls their eyes in unison, almost like they’re still connected.

“Capheus can go.” Riley says. “They don’t know about him.”

Capheus nods in agreement. “I’m nobody. They won’t be looking for me. I’ll go.”

“Not alone,” Will says. “Nobody goes alone.”

“So…” The implication is clear. There’s no one else who isn’t compromised, exposed in some way.

“I’ll go.”

They all turn to stare at Amanita, who shrugs. “I mean, who better to explain it to an outsider than another outsider?”

Nomi squeezes her hand. “Thank you.”

Amanita laughs. “I’m up to my neck in this thing already. I might as well make myself useful.”

“Okay, so Capheus and Amanita will go,” Will says. “It’s probably safer to take the train. We could find a lightly secured border crossing on the mainland, but there’s only one way across the channel and you’ll blend in better on a train than in a car on a ferry.”

“So what do we tell this guy? Felix?”

Kala shakes her head. “I think if I could be there through Capheus, I could convince him. Tell him the things about their childhood that Wolfgang told me.”

“Nobody goes off blockers,” Will says. “It’s too risky.”

“So how are we going to communicate with Capheus?”

“Hey,” Amanita interjects. “I know you guys are all into your superhero abilities, but think like a sapien for a second. How about face time _with_ a phone?”

It’s so obvious it’s nearly laughable.

“Okay,” Will says, chuckling and shaking his head. “A conference call. Like _sapiens_ do it. Once you’ve found Felix and convinced him to listen to you. We’ll need some burner phones. Untraceable.”

“I’ll call Bug,” Nomi says. “He’s got a guy.”

Amanita turns to Capheus. She’s grinning madly, and she claps her hands together in glee. “Road trip!” Capheus looks mildly alarmed.

The morning after Bug comes through with the burner phones—some sketchy teen in a hoodie shoves a bag into Lito’s hand in the middle of Trafalgar Square before disappearing into the crowd—Amanita and Capheus leave early for Berlin. They turn out to be oddly well-suited traveling companions.

Capheus is wide-eyed and excited by every new thing he encounters, and Amanita is generally excited by _everything_ , new or not. They talk in an enthusiastic babble to each other most of the way, pausing only briefly to check in with the cluster back in London. They were right. No one at border control lifts an eyebrow at either of them, and they zip through, onto the European mainland.

They only have fifteen minutes in Brussels to change trains, but Amanita insists on finding a place to buy frites, because Capheus simply _has_ to experience Belgian fries while he’s here. The result is that they wind up racing through the terminal and leaping onto their departing train with moments to spare, frites clutched firmly in hand.

“Is she always this…exuberant?” Will asks Nomi as they get an update by phone.

“Always,” Nomi says fondly.

Capheus loves the frites.

*

Once they reach Berlin, Nomi guides them to Felix’s nightclub. It’s nearly 6 pm and they figure he’s likely to be there, getting ready to open the club for the night. The second they walk in the door, a huge guy with a neck thicker than his head moves to block them.

Amanita clears her throat and tries out the German phrase she’s been memorizing since they left London. _“We’re here to see Felix.”_

Of course, she hadn’t thought ahead to actually getting a response to that. The guy spews a flood of German at her, then turns and disappears. Amanita and Capheus look at each other and shrug.

A few minutes later, Felix appears from the back of the club, looking wary. Amanita tries out the only other thing she memorized in German.

_“My name is Amanita. Do you speak English?”_

Felix eyes her for another moment before replying. “Yeah, I speak English.”

She exhales and smiles in relief. Neither Capheus or her know any German, but Capheus’s English is passable. It’s been the commonality they’ve defaulted to while they’re all together in the flesh. Capheus explained to her that they can understand each other and everyone around them easily when they’re not on blockers, which must be pretty handy, she thinks. Their brains have become built-in universal translators.

“We’ve come to talk to you about Wolfgang,” Capheus says, and Felix’s face freezes in alarm.

“You know Wolfgang?”

“I do,” Capheus says.

“And I’m kind of a friend of a friend,” Amanita adds.

“What do you know about him? Where is he?” Felix’s anxiety is palpable.

“Can we go somewhere private to talk?” Amanita asks. “This might take a while.”

“We can go in the office,” Felix says, motioning for them to follow him. He exchanges a brief word with the massive-necked dude before leading them through a door in the back of the space. Down a hallway, he leads them through another door, to a small, untidy office space. The desk is haphazardly covered with papers. Felix bypasses it entirely and points to a couch and two armchairs in the corner.

“Sorry for the mess,” he says apologetically. “I hate this part. The bills, the papers. It sucks.”

Amanita and Capheus sit side by side on the couch. “I know what you mean. Inventory is the worst, right?”

“The absolute worst,” Felix agrees. “How do you know Wolfgang? I’ve known him all my life and I’ve never met either one of you.”

Amanita and Capheus exchange a look. “It’s complicated,” Capheus says, before pulling out his phone. “And there are some others who want to talk to you, too. They’re in London.”

He calls Will, who picks up immediately. “I’m here with Felix,” Capheus tells him. “I’ll put you on Facetime.”

The screen lights up with the faces of the six left behind in London, crowded around the table, and Capheus smiles briefly at them in greeting before propping the phone on the table where all three of them can see it.

“Who are they? For that matter, who are you?”

“I’m Capheus, and this is Amanita.”

The sensates on the phone call out their names to a baffled Felix.

“How about you explain why all these people from all around the world want to talk to me about Wolfgang?”

Capheus inhales deeply and glances at his cluster on the phone screen. It’s the same as his first political speech, he tells himself. When he got up there, he had no idea what he was doing. But he started talking and the truth just came out.

“About two years ago, something started happening to me. To all of us. And to Wolfgang. We…you see, we’re connected, the eight of us. What one experiences, we all experience.”

Felix shakes his head. “What do you mean you’ve been connected to Wolfgang for a year? He’s been here in Berlin for the past year.”

Capheus taps his temple. “Connected up here. We don’t go anywhere, but we can step into each other’s lives. And sometimes, into each other’s bodies.”

Felix scoffs. “You’re saying Wolfgang is possessed?”

Capheus laughs. “A bit? In a good way. And only when he wants it. Or needs it.”

Felix lets out a huff of disbelieving laughter. “Come on…”

“It’s true,” Kala pipes up from the phone. “I was there with him when you were in the hospital, Felix. Not the first hospital. The second one. The one Wolfgang hid you in so his cousin wouldn’t find you.”

Felix’s eyes go wide. “How did you know—“

“I told you,” Kala said patiently. “I was there. That’s when he told me how you met. And about watching Conan together. He said it was your favorite.”

“Conan?”

Kala smiles. “’No one will remember if we were good men or bad. Only that two stood against many.’ I think that’s how it goes, yes?”

Felix nods mutely.

“I was there when he killed his uncle, too. He shot him in the thigh first, then he came back later and shot him in the head, because of the bulletproof vest he was wearing.”

“Damn, Kala,” Will breathes.

Felix sucks in a breath. “How did you know that? About the vest?”

“Because I was _there_.”

Felix drags his hands through his hair and closes his eyes. He’s wavering, Capheus thinks. Kala has made an impact.

“I was the one who made the bomb,” Kala tells him.

“I thought you said it was just your minds,” he counters.

“It is. But we can step inside each other. It’s hard to explain. When I’m with him in his mind, he knows everything I know. He can do anything I can do.”

“Wait—“ Felix says, sitting back heavily in his chair.

“What is it?” Capheus presses, sensing a question Felix can’t bring himself to ask.

Felix shakes his head. “This is crazy. But…”

“Go on,” Amanita urges. “It’s a lot to take in, I know. Talk. Ask. There’s nothing you can say that’s too crazy in this situation. Believe me.”

Felix chuckles. “It’s just…when you spend your whole life with a guy, you know him, right? You know what he can do. And what he can’t.”

“Yes?” Capheus urges him forward toward the conclusion he knows he’s already come to in his mind, as impossible as it is. “What did you see him do?”

“This one time, last New Year’s Eve, right after the robbery—”

“The diamonds,” everyone says in unison, and Felix startles.

“Right. The diamonds. We got jumped in a parking lot. It was five against two, and they were armed. We should have died.”

“But you didn’t,” Sun says on the phone.

Felix meets her gaze. “That was you? With the Kung Fu stuff? Because Wolfgang is a good fighter, but he doesn’t know that stuff.”

Sun nods. “That was me. It was both of us.”

Felix swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “You saved my life. Thank you.”

Sun nods her head. “Wolfgang saved my life, too. More than once. You’re right. He’s a very good fighter.”

“Were you there when he killed Steiner and his gang? Because I never understood how he did that alone.”

“That was me,” Lito says. “I was there.”

Felix sits forward, squinting at the phone. “Are you Lito Hernandez, the actor?”

Lito smiles and shrugs with false modesty, and everyone else on screen groans.

“ _Lito Hernandez_ helped Wolfgang kill Steiner? I can’t believe this.”

“I can’t tell you,” Lito says, eyes lighting up. “He was _amazing_ , the way he took that grenade launcher from the trunk of his car and... BOOM! It was brilliant.” Lito mimics firing a grenade launcher.

“Boom!” Felix cackles, clapping his hands together. “I wish I’d been there.”

“Can we please stop glorifying Wolfgang’s violent tendencies?” Kala says, giving Lito a look of irritation over her shoulder.

“Who is she?” Felix mutters to Capheus.

“His girlfriend.”

Felix goes wide-eyed. “Wait… She’s Wolfgang’s _girlfriend_? But how—”

“It’s complicated,” Capheus sighs.

“Oh.” Felix sits forward, addressing Kala on the little screen. “You must be the India plan!”

Kala smiles bashfully.

“He orders Indian food all the time these days. I was wondering why he was suddenly so crazy about curry.”

“My father’s curry,” Kala says proudly.

“And kimchi!” Felix goes on. “He used to hate that stuff, but one day a few months ago, he wouldn’t rest until we found some.”

“That was for me,” Sun says quietly. “When I was still in prison. I was missing it, so he ate it for me. He’s a good friend.”

“Yeah, he is. Hey, the restaurant—when he…when he leveled the whole damned place…”

“We were all there,” Will says. “He needed us. It was a trap.”

“That’s why we need to talk to you,” Capheus says. “There are others like us, but they’re not friends.”

“And there are some very powerful people out to get people like us,” Will adds. “They have Wolfgang.”

Felix shakes his head in confusion. “What do you mean, they have him?”

“I mean,” Capheus says. “They kidnapped him here in Berlin and they took him someplace. We don’t know where yet, but we’re looking for him.”

“What are they—is he okay?”

Capheus can’t suppress the grimace of pain just at the memory of what Wolfgang is enduring. Amanita, remembering the way Nomi went to her knees in agony, reaches out and clasps Capheus’s hand. “It’s not good,” she tells Felix, who goes pale. “They’re torturing him, trying to pressure him into leading them to the rest of the cluster.”

“Well they can try all they fucking want!” Felix explodes in fury. “Nobody breaks Wolfgang Bogdonow!”

“We’re on blockers,” Will says, “So they can’t look inside his mind and see us. But there are other ways.”

“He won’t break,” Felix insists again.

“We’d rather not give them any leverage,” Will replies. “That’s why we’re here.”

Kala leans into the phone, her face filling the screen. “Felix, Wolfgang has us, and he has you. We can take care of ourselves and he knows that. But if they can, they’ll use you to get to him. You’re the only person he cares about, outside of us. He loves you.”

“And you think they’ll come after me?”

“It was Lila. She’s like us, but she’s working for them. She led them to Wolfgang.”

Felix’s face fills with rage. “That bitch!”

“I agree,” Kala says drily. “But she’s a dangerous bitch. And she knows who you are and what you mean to Wolfgang.”

“Felix,” Capheus says. “Can you come back to London with us? You’ll be safe there.”

Felix shakes his head. “I can’t. There’s the club. I have to be here. One of my bartenders quit with no warning, and my supplier shorted me three crates of vodka… such a fucking pain in the ass. This was supposed to be fun, you know?”

“We’re worried about you,” Kala presses. “Wolfgang would want us to take care of you.”

“It’s not just Lila,” Will says. “She’s got a cluster, too, and we don’t know who any of them are.”

Felix smiles ruefully. “I can take care of myself, too. I’ll be careful. You just get Wolfgang back.”

“We will,” Kala says fiercely. “We promise.”

*

Felix tries to convince Capheus and Amanita to stay over in Berlin, at least for the night. They’ll be traveling all night if they leave now. But both feel safer if they keep moving, and Capheus is eager to put as much distance between himself and Lila as possible.

“Here.” Amanita pulls another burner phone out of her backpack and hands it to Felix. “There’s only one number programmed in there. Don’t use it for anything else unless you need to reach us. I already sent you a message. They’re coordinates. Just in case. Memorize them then delete the message.”

“Understood.” Felix looks grimly at the phone. The coordinates are for them, their safehouse in London. “This shit is really serious, huh? I mean, I thought the diamonds and Steiner was serious, but this…”

Amanita squeezes his arm. “They’re going to find him. They won’t rest until they do.”

*

By the time Amanita and Capheus arrive back in London, the cluster is abuzz with something new. Kala’s had an idea, something she’s been thinking about since she left Mumbai.

“I was in such a hurry when I was copying the blockers in the lab. I just needed to make as many as possible before I left. But I noticed something about them while I was breaking down the chemical profile.”

“What’s that?” Will asks.

“It’s very clumsy,” she says, scowling. “It’s hard to express in words, but the way they work, it’s very broad for what they need to do. Imagine you have a benign bump on your arm. Instead of using a scalpel to remove it, you blast it with high dosage chemotherapy. It’s a bit like that. Overkill.”

Nomi considers this. “Maybe they have to be broad because of our biology. They need to work on every sensate, so they cast the widest net possible.”

Will leans forward on his elbows. “What are you saying, Kala?”

“I’m saying, what if I can turn the chemotherapy into a scalpel? What if I can make blockers that work just for our cluster?”

“So we can’t visit each other but other sensates can visit us?”

She shakes her head. “The opposite. We could visit each other, but nobody outside our cluster could get in.”

Sun’s eyes meet Will’s across the table. To be able to visit each other, inhabit each other, as they fight BPO would give them a massive advantage. Each one of them could fight nearly anyone they encountered, hack any computer system, access every piece of information on the internet in seconds, hotwire any vehicle, speak multiple languages….

Amanita had it right—they’d be superheroes. Going up against an admittedly well-funded organization, but one run, at the end of the day, by ordinary humans and aided by sensates who, because _they_ were on blockers, would be unable to access their most basic advantage.

“What do you need to do it?” Will asks.

“Not so fast,” Kala says quickly. “It’s just an idea. Something I’ve been thinking about. I’m not sure I _can_ do it.”

“But if you’re going to try?”

“I need a lab. Access to chemicals.”

Will looks at Riley.

“I’ll make a call,” she says, pushing to her feet.

*

It’s the worst lab Kala’s ever seen. It’s filthy, tucked in the back of an abandoned warehouse in a very suspect area of town. The floor is littered with broken glass vials, chunks of concrete from the crumbling walls, and old take-away containers. Several of the small panes of grimy glass in the windows are broken, stuffed with newspaper to keep the cold out. There are birds roosting in the rafters overhead.

“Have they never heard of cleanliness protocols?” Kala mutters, picking through the detritus scattered across the one work surface.

“They make drugs here,” Riley says. “Illegal ones, not the kind that cure diseases. Will it work, though?”

Kala takes a deep breath. “Well, I’ll see what I can do.”

Hours later she’s still hard at work when Will comes to relieve Riley.

“How’s it going?”

Kala shakes her head as she carefully pours the contents of a glass vial into a beaker set over a low flame. There’s no Bunsen burner, so she’s using a candle Riley got from the drug store on the corner, juiced up with some rubbing alcohol. “I have no idea. I don’t really know what I’m doing. This feels more art than science.”

“If you can do this, it would change everything for us.”

Kala scoffs softly. “Thank you for the additional pressure, Will. Wolfgang’s life is on the line. I’m well aware of how important this is.”

Riley touches her arm in sympathy. “I know it’s hard, but we’re going to get him back. One way or another.”

Will points at Kala’s work. “But this would make it a whole lot easier.”

Riley scowls at him. “Stop! You’re not helping.”

“I’m sorry, but right now, neither of you is helping. I need to concentrate.”

Riley snags Will by the sleeve and drags him away. “Stop breathing down her neck and let her work,” she mutters.

*

Kala does nothing but work for twenty-four hours, not stopping to sleep or even eat. By late in the second day, Sun—whose turn it is to stay with her—has to drag her away from the table to make her eat something. Within five minutes, she’s back to work.

By that night, she thinks she might have something to show for it.

Back at the squat, she holds seven blue capsules in her open palm as the others cluster around her to look.

Nomi asks the question everyone is thinking. “How are we going to test them?”

*

They argue about it forever. Riley and Nomi are all for the whole cluster trying them together. What one does, they all do. But Will is vehemently opposed. He refuses to risk any more of them than absolutely necessary.

It takes a full day of negotiations to come up with a plan, and another full day to put the plan in place. Will and Kala will go off regular blockers while the rest stay on. Sun fought hard to take Kala’s place. If the worst happens and BPO finds them while they’re vulnerable, Sun is a better fighter. But while Sun has an international arrest warrant out for her issued by _humans_ , BPO doesn’t yet know she’s a sensate. She’s still flying under _their_ radar, at least for the moment. Kala is not.

BPO tagged her during that awful moment when they first had Wolfgang and were torturing him. He was connected to her, and Whispers was connected to Wolfgang. Through Wolfgang’s eyes, Whispers saw Kala’s passport. He knows her name. They’ve managed to kidnap Whispers since then, but the rest of BPO knows all about Kala Dandekar at this point. And they’ve known about Will for months and months.

*

On the morning of the trial, Will and Riley come for Whispers. Every day, they’ve brought Whispers and Jonas food, and injected them with blockers, but otherwise, they’ve been left alone. This morning. Jonas gets the shot. Whispers does not.

“What are you up to, Will?” Jonas asks.

“Changing the rules, that’s all.”

“Will,” Jonas cautions. “Be careful. You don’t know what you’re up against.”

“I’ve been inside Wolfgang’s head while BPO was working him over. With all due respect, I know exactly what I’m up against. And I’m ready to put an end to it.”

“Your hubris will get your entire cluster killed, Mr. Gorski,” Whispers drawls in that maddening way that makes Will want to choke him out. “But not before you’re all under my knife.”

“You’ll be using your knives to slit your own damned throat when we’re done with you,” Will says pleasantly. “Let’s go. Today we’re going to do things a little differently.

“What are you doing, Will?” Jonas asks, his voice growing more frantic as Will unhooks Whispers’ shackles from the wall.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, Jonas. Whatever we’re going to do, we know better than to count on you. Come on, Whispers. This is gonna be fun.”

Capheus and Will have built a wooden box. It’s similar to the one The Old Man of Hoy showed Riley. No light and no sound can penetrate. It’s large enough to sit in comfortably, but not to stand up in, or lie down in. The box is in the middle of a spartan basement room in the squat. The walls are plastered with old newsprint. Sounds of the street outside are muffled and far away.

“Okay, Whispers, in you go.” Will shoves him forward, but Whispers plants his feet, balking.

Kala is there, swinging a hammer and smiling. “It won’t hurt, I promise.”

“What is this, Ms. Dandekar? You’ve built me a coffin?”

Kala peers around the edge of the box at its interior. “If it’s meant to be a coffin, we’ve gotten the proportions very wrong. But lucky for you, it’s not a coffin. We’re not going to kill you.”

“At least, not today,” Will says conversationally, giving Whispers another shove forward.

A flicker of genuine unease passes through Whispers’ eyes, as if, despite the shackles and imprisonment, he’s only just understood that he’s entirely at their mercy. Will takes a moment to relish in his fear. After all, he and Riley have been living with fear as a constant companion for over a year, hounded like dogs, living in one decrepit squat after another, desperately trying to stay under BPO’s radar. For just a moment, Whispers is going to know how it feels. When all this is over—when they’ve gotten Wolfgang back and somehow neutralized BPO, he will take his retribution on Whispers. It will not be pretty, and it will not be quick. But it also won’t be today. There’s work to do.

“Oh!” Kala claps a hand to her cheek in mock concern as Whispers once again resists getting into the box. “Are you afraid of the dark? We’re not quite that cruel.” She flips a switch and a small fluorescent glow strip mounted inside to the roof of the box flickers to life.

Will manhandles him in, bending his head down and shoving him inside.

Kala leans in with a syringe. “This might pinch a bit,” she says, stabbing it without gentleness into his upper arm and depressing the plunger. After clipping his shackles to a bolt in the floor, Will hefts the front wall of the box into place. Kala hands him the hammer, then she braces the wooden wall in place while Will hammers the box closed.

Then they go to work on the cell, quickly covering the windows with newspapers from Germany and turning on a hidden speaker playing traffic noise recorded in Berlin. If Kala’s blockers fail and other sensates visit them, hopefully the disguised room will send them off on a wild goose chase.

Will turns to Kala. She holds out a pill. They look at each other, take a deep breath, and toss back Kala’s blockers.

If the blockers work the way Kala hopes, they won’t work on Whispers, because he’s not in their cluster. And Will and Kala will be able to slip inside each other, but the rest of their cluster, still on regular blockers upstairs, will not. No one has said it out loud, but Kala is praying to Ganesh that she will be able to visit Wolfgang during this experiment. BPO has no reason to keep him on blockers. Indeed, they’ve got every reason not to, in the hopes that one of his cluster slips up and they can use Wolfgang to uncover them.

“How long until we’re sure we’re off regular blockers and yours are fully effective?” Will asks, pacing around the small basement room.

Kala checks her watch. “The new ones should be fully effective in ten minutes. But we’ll wait for a full half hour, to be sure. We’re nearly off the old ones. I can feel it.”

After weeks on blockers, they all know the physical and mental symptoms well enough. There’s the strange sense of disconnectedness, the feeling your thoughts are wrapped in gauze. She hates them.

Already, her head is clearing. Her senses are beginning to tingle with heightened awareness. She feels like she could turn her head slightly and see a different room in a different place, like there are multiple realities swimming around her, and all she has to do is will herself into one.

She doesn’t. Not yet. She wants to wait, until she’s sure the last of the old blockers have worn off. And she wants to give the new ones time to become fully effective before she steps outside of herself. Will is still pacing, not looking at her, closed in on himself. He’s doing the same thing, she knows. Waiting, waiting…

Suddenly she’s not looking at Will pacing back and forth in front of her. She’s looking at the dirty floor, farther away than when she looks down through her own eyes. And she’s looking not at her pretty floral leather flats. She’s looking at dirty white high-top sneakers. Will’s sneakers.

She lifts her head to look back at herself and now she’s back in her own body, looking at Will.

“You were here, weren’t you?” he asks.

She nods. “I didn’t even try. I was just…there.”

The corner of Will’s mouth quirks. “Just like the old days.”

She’s missed it, the indescribable feeling of being with her cluster mates. Even now, when they’re physically in the same room, it’s not the same sense of connectedness as when they’re visiting or slipping in and out of each other.

“Try me,” she says.

Will looks straight into her eyes, and suddenly, he’s with her, in her, looking back at himself. She can feel him there.

Then he’s gone again. Kala fights down a flare of joy. All that means is that they’re off the old blockers. It doesn’t mean hers are working.

“Try Whispers,” she says.

Will looks at the box and goes still. Kala is holding her breath. If her blockers work, Will won’t be able to visit Whispers inside that box.

A moment later, he turns to her, a grin spreading across his face. “Nothing.”

“I’m going to try Capheus,” she says. “You try Riley.”

She concentrates on Capheus, on his bright, delighted smile, on his cheerful presence, on the indescribable essence of Capheus, which is now as familiar to her as her own sense of self.

She can’t reach him. It’s like being back on blockers.

“I can’t get to her,” Will says.

“Neither can I.”

“Kala,” Will begins. “I know—”

But she doesn’t let him finish. She thinks of Wolfgang, pictures his angel’s face and his clear blue eyes. Imagines his stubbled cheek under her palm…

And then she’s not imagining, she’s visiting. Her hand is on his face and she’s gazing down into his eyes.

Wolfgang is staring up at her with shock and horror. “What the hell are you doing? Get out of here! It’s not safe!”

“It’s okay,” she reassures him. “They can’t see us.”

He looks better than the last time she saw him—that horrific glimpse right after BPO had captured him, bruised and bloody, hooked up to electrodes. He’s still in restraints, but they seem to have stopped torturing him for some reason. Isn’t BPO still trying to use him to get to them? It doesn’t make sense.

“Why aren’t they still trying to find us through you?”

That’s Will, who has slipped into Wolfgang’s life right behind Kala.

“I don’t think they can. Whispers isn’t here and nobody else can do it. Why the hell did you two come here? Whispers isn’t around, but BPO has other sensates on their payroll.”

“They can’t see us,” Will says, then he flashes Kala a smile. “Because Kala’s a genius, and she just changed this whole game.”

“What are you talking about?” Wolfgang struggles helplessly against his restraints and it’s killing Kala that she can’t set him free.

“It doesn’t matter right now. So, Whispers is the only one who can use that thing?” Will jerks his head to the lab on the other side of the glass wall, where Whispers’ unholy mind-control device sits dark and unattended.

“I think so. No one else has even tried.”

“Huh. Interesting.” Will’s cop side has taken over as he puzzles out the information from all angles, but all Kala cares about is Wolfgang.

“How are you?” she asks, touching his face again and leaning in close.

For a moment, those blue eyes soften in the way they only do when he looks at her—those rare flashes of Wolfgang’s tenderness. “Better now,” he says, his mouth twitching with a repressed smile. “Are you safe? Did you make it to Paris?”

“I made it to the airport. That’s when they started torturing you. Everything changed after that. We’re all together. Not in Paris. We’re safe.”

“Good. Can you—” He stops himself from finishing the sentence.

“What?”

“Never mind. It would be too dangerous for you.”

“Felix? We already told him.”

Wolfgang is not easily surprised, but now his eyes widen slightly. “How did you know?”

Kala shrugs. “I know you. I know how important he is to you. I knew you would want him safe. So Capheus and Amanita went to Berlin to warn him about Lila and her cluster.”

“You told him about us? This?”

Kala nods. “He believed it eventually. We tried to get him to come to us, but he wouldn’t leave Berlin. At least now he knows.”

“Felix can take care of himself,” Wolfgang says grimly.

Kala hopes he’s right. Losing Felix would destroy whatever’s left of Wolfgang once they manage to wrench him free of BPO.

Will turns back to them, his eyebrows furrowed as his detective’s brain works overtime parsing evidence. “Have you seen any—”

Will and Kala jerk in surprise as they both feel Will’s cell buzzing with a text. He pulls it out of his pocket.

“We have to go. Someone is at the door upstairs.”

“Upstairs?” Wolfgang echoes.

“The others,” Kala explains. They’re upstairs. Back there. Not on the same blockers as us.”

“Wait…These blockers. You can visit when you’re on them.”

She touches his face again, praying that soon—for the first time—she’ll be touching him for real. “Only within our cluster. So we’ll be back for you.”

“And not just to visit,” Will promises. “We’re getting you out of here.”

“Be careful,” Wolfgang says, unnecessarily, and Kala can see his frustration. He’s a fighter, and he’s left strapped down and helpless. He can’t protect anyone right now, not even himself.

“We’re careful,” she promises him, because the last thing he needs to worry about right now is the safety of the rest of the cluster. He just needs to survive. He has to live. If he doesn’t…. she can’t bear to think about that.

“Kala,” Will warns.

“I know.” She can’t bear to leave him just yet. Just another glimpse of his eyes, just another moment of the warmth of his skin under her fingertips.

Wolfgang stares up at her, stealing his moment, too. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “About Paris.”

She smiles for him. “We’ll do it someday. When this is all over. Next year, we’ll have Paris.”

“Next year,” he repeats.

Then, although it’s the hardest thing Kala has ever done, she leaves him. She steps out of Wolfgang’s life and back into her own.

She and Will are still in the basement. Still alone. She can feel no other sensates present, not even her own cluster.

The steel door to the basement shrieks open and Capheus peers down the dark, narrow stairs. “Guys, someone is coming.”

Will takes the stairs two at a time. Kala’s just stepping into the drafty open space upstairs and he’s already at the sliding steel door of the warehouse.

“A van pulled up outside two minutes ago,” Capheus explains.

“Outside” is an empty alley behind this abandoned warehouse. There’s no reason for any vehicle to be there unless its occupants have come for them.

“Get ready to run,” Will warns them all.

Plans were put in place before today’s experiment. Sun, Nomi, Amanita, Lito, Capheus, Riley…they all have go bags at hand the minute Sun gives the signal. Riley’s got a path through London to another safehouse already mapped out.

Will unholsters his revolver. Capheus hoists a wood beam onto his shoulder, ready to strike. Sun comes to stand right behind them both. An army of three, ready to take on whoever’s about to bust through that door. Will wraps his hand around the metal handle, ready to pull it open and expose their enemy.

Amanita’s phone rings.

She jumps, eyes wide as she scrambles for it. “Sorry!” she mouths silently.

Then she glances at the screen.

“It’s Felix.”

“Answer it!” Kala hisses.

Amanita swipes to answer the call. “Felix?” she whispers, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the silent warehouse.

Felix’s voice is so loud, they can all hear it. But not because he’s shouting into the phone. Because he’s on the other side of the door.

“Open up! This bitch is heavy.”

Will yanks the door open, revealing an aggrieved Felix, phone wedged under his chin. His hands aren’t free because he’s holding the inert body of Lila.

He straightens. The burner phone they gave him clatters to the ground.

“Finally,” he growls, and unceremoniously tosses Lila to the floor. She lands like a sack of flour, with a heavy thud and absolutely no movement. She might as well be dead. “I figure you guys would know what to do with this.”

*

Half an hour later, Lila has been dosed with old-school blockers and locked up alongside Whispers and Jonas. Will and Capheus join the others where they’re gathered around the kitchen table with Felix.

“We’re getting quite a collection of bad guys down there,” Will quips as Riley hands him a beer. “She’s still out cold,” he says to Felix. “What’s she on?”

“Ketamine,” he says, before taking a swig of his own beer. “Enough to take down a horse.”

“How’d you manage that? She’s pretty crafty.”

Kala rolls her eyes, but she says nothing.

“See, the thing about everybody thinking you’re stupid,” Felix says. “Is that people always underestimate you. My whole life, Wolfie was the tough one. I was the dumb sidekick. They forget I can fuck shit up, too.”

“But how did you inject her? She would have seen that coming.”

“I didn’t, at first. I called her up, all worried about my friend, Wolfie, and I asked her to come by the bar.” He snorts in laughter. “The stuck-up bitch thought I was going to put the moves on her. She was so wrapped up in her little head games, thinking I’m just some dumb jerk panting after her, that she didn’t think twice about the drink I gave her. That took her out long enough to shoot her up with the hard stuff. Then I threw her in the van and here we are.”

“Now that we have her,” Kala says. “We might be able to get Wolfgang back without leaving this warehouse.”

“How do you figure that?” Will asks.

“Think about it. She’s a terrible person, but she has a cluster, and they’re going to want her back as much as we want Wolfgang.”

“We get them to break Wolfgang out,” Nomi says. “And then trade.”

Sun considers this. “And since they know BPO better than we do—”

“Because they’re scum collaborators,” Lito interjects.

“Their chances of getting him out are better than ours,” Will concludes. “Now we just need to figure out how to make contact.”

“Give it a day,” Sun says. “Once they realize she’s gone, they’ll trace her back to Felix. And Felix is with us.”

Sun is right. It doesn’t take long at all for the phone call to come. It’s Maitake, from Lila’s cluster, demanding to know what Felix has done with Lila.

“Only what she had coming, asshole,” Felix says. “Hey, I have a friend who wants to talk to you.”

Will takes the phone. “See, it’s very simple. You want Lila back, we want Wolfgang back. And you’re going to get him for us.”

“And how do you propose I do that?” Maitake snarls.

“Your cluster is the one firmly up BPO’s ass. I’m sure you’ll figure something out, even without the brains of your operation. Call me back when you’ve got him.”

He ends the call.

“Now what?” Riley asks.

“Now we wait.”

*

They know it the minute Lila’s cluster makes their move to free Wolfgang, because Kala is visiting Wolfgang when it happens. She’s tried to stay away from him, as Will and Sun insisted, but it’s just too hard, knowing he’s all alone and scared and held by people who see him as nothing more than a lab rat. She visits him without even meaning to, as if there’s no place else she can be but at his side.

Two of Lila’s cluster enter the room where Wolfgang is still strapped to a gurney. She can’t see who the newcomers are, because they’re wearing hazmat suits and full-face respirators, but she knows they’re with Lila because they waste no time injecting Wolfgang with blockers.

There’s only a minute for Kala to look into his eyes one more time, to hope that the next time she looks into them, she’ll be face-to-face with him at last.

“What’s going on?” he asks. “Who are these guys?”

“They’re getting you out for us.”

“I told you to forget about me.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“How do you know you can trust these guys?”

“We can’t. But we have something they want just as much as we want you, so they’ll do exactly what’s asked of them.”

“Kala, what have you done?”

“Not me,” she tells him. “Felix. This part was his idea.”

“He’s okay?”

“He’s okay. You’ll see him soon. And we’ll see you soon.”

“Be careful,” is all he has time to say, and then the blockers hit his bloodstream, and she’s back in their safehouse in London with the others.

Maitake’s phone call comes soon after. “Okay we got him. Now where’s Lila?”

Will glances over at Kala. He knows she was with him. She nods. “They have him. I saw it.”

“The Brick Lane market in Shoreditch,” Will says. “Tomorrow at noon. We’ll find you.” He hangs up before Maitake can reply.

*

Brick Lane is bustling with people on Sundays. In addition to all the regular funky shops and the trendy coffee bars, there are vendors with booths set up selling everything from vintage clothes to old records to flower bouquets. Street musicians add to the general feeling of festive chaos.

No one makes any note of Felix and Kala strong-arming Lila between them, slowly making their way through the crowds. Will and Sun are flanking them, looking like ordinary London shoppers browsing the wares, but they’re never farther than three feet away. The others have spread out up and down the length of Brick Lane, keeping an eye out for any sign of Maitake and Wolfgang.

“Your bravery is so charming.” Lila says languidly. “Charming and doomed.”

Kala tightens her grip on her arm until she feels Lila flinch. It’s like channeling Wolfgang even when he’s not here. She understands hatred now—white-hot hatred so intense it could burn down the world. She wants to burn down Lila for what she’s done to Wolfgang, handing him over to BPO to be tortured. But Lila’s their bargaining chip, the only way to get Wolfgang back.

“Perhaps you could try sounding a bit less like the villain in a children’s cartoon,” Kala says brightly. “And I will choose bravery over the cowardice of complicity every time. If I die, then I will die fighting, not licking the shoes of those who wish to destroy my kind. I suppose that’s the difference between you and me.”

Lila shoots her a nasty look over her shoulder, unaccustomed to being so blatantly insulted. “It’s not cowardice to recognize where the power lies and use it for your own purposes.”

“Do you think you’re in control of them? Do you think you’re the clever one here, using BPO like a puppet on a string? Oh Lila, you don’t have any power here. They’re just happy to let you think you do because, for the moment, you’re useful to them. You’re one of us, which means they want to destroy you just as much as they want to destroy us. Perhaps you’ll be one of the last to go, but they’ll put you under the knife all the same.”

Something flickers in Lila’s eyes, a tiny moment of doubt, gone as fast as it came. Then her chin tilts up, her regular arrogance reasserting itself.

“I suppose we’ll see.”

“I suppose we will. I, for one, will delight in watching you burn to the ground along with BPO.”

“I’ll bring the matches,” Felix mutters from the other side of Lila.

Lila turns to look at him. “I underestimated you, Felix. Your loyalty to Wolfgang. Your resourcefulness. You really are quite ruthless when you want to be.”

Kala’s skin prickles with alarm, hearing that note of seduction in Lila’s voice as she attempts to stroke Felix’s ego. But she shouldn’t have doubted Felix for an instant. He turns to Lila, contempt filling his face.

“Yes, I’m loyal. And very good at taking out the trash, as it so happens.”

Lila’s expression freezes. Felix just smiles at her.

“They’re here.” Capheus is there with Kala. Then Kala is with Capheus, fifty feet further up the road, looking at Wolfgang, held between Maitake and another man, a member of Lila’s cluster they haven’t seen yet.

“We’re coming.” That’s Will. In the instant it’s taken Kala to slip inside Capheus and see Wolfgang, the others have slipped in, too. From up and down Brick Lane, they’re making their way to this spot, but right now, all seven of them are watching through Capheus’s eyes.

They’re standing next to the entrance to the food hall. It’s noon, and all the shoppers out for a stroll are beginning to pour through the doors in search of mid-day sustenance. No one pays any attention to the three men standing awkwardly close, just to the right of the entrance.

Wolfgang looks good. Murderously angry and ready to rip the heads off the two men holding him, but good. Not injured, not starved. His eyes scan the crowd and catch for an instant on Capheus. There’s a moment of surprise. It’s the first time he’s seen any of them in the flesh. Kala sees the flicker of emotion there before he shuts it down and turns his face away, as if there’s no one of note in the crowd around him.

“Hang back,” Will instructs Kala, and she tugs Lila and Felix to a halt. “Let the rest of us get into position first. They don’t know us, so they won’t know we’re there until you show up.”

Kala watches through Capheus as one by one, the sensates make their way through the crowd to the food hall. Wolfgang notes each arrival nearly imperceptibly. But each time, there’s a meeting of the eyes, a brief acknowledgement. _There you are at last, person inside my head._

She can see him scanning the crowd, looking for her, the only one not there in the flesh. Everyone else has positioned themselves. Sun and Lito wandered into the food hall, just inches away from Maitake, chatting about what they were going to eat for lunch. Now they’re positioned right inside the door, ready to block Maitake and his partner if they try anything untoward. Riley, Will, Nomi, and Amanita are stationed in a loose half circle in front of the trio, pretending to browse the various vendor stalls. No one is further than fifteen feet away.

“It’s time,” Kala announces.

“You know they can find you now, don’t you?” Lila asks smugly as Kala and Felix hustle her forward. “It was stupid, to do this off blockers.”

“Why do you assume we’re not on blockers?” Kala asks innocently. Lila isn’t the only one who can play cat and mouse. She thinks she’s so clever, when really, this game has just moved forward a dozen moves while she wasn’t looking.

“Because you’re visiting your cluster. I can tell.”

“Mmm. You’re right, that would be impossible on the old blockers. But not the new ones.”

Her announcement literally causes Lila to stumble, and Kala relishes delivering this blow. “What new blockers? If there were new blockers, I would know about it.”

“You don’t know about them because BPO didn’t make these,” Kala says. “I did.”

“But how—”

“Lila,” she admonishes gently. “I warned you. You’re not as clever as you think you are. Think carefully about what you do next. We’ve changed the rules of this game, and we’re coming for BPO. Think about whose side you want to be on when we get there.”

There’s no time for Lila to formulate a comeback, because there, just ahead, is Wolfgang. Not the man who’s been in her head for the past two years, more fantasy than real. _Wolfgang_. The sun is glinting off his gold hair and turning his blue eyes that silvery color she’s imagined so many times. But it’s real this time. He’s real.

He sees her and this time he doesn’t look away, pretending not to notice. He stares. Wolfgang’s stare is a thing of brutal intensity. She thought she knew what it would be like. She was wrong.

Will materializes at her side, and beside Felix, Capheus.

“You’re surrounded,” Will says conversationally. “So try something and we’ll take you apart. Just take your traitor and get out of here.”

“And what are you going to do next?” Maitake sneers. “It’s just a matter of time before they find you.”

“We’re going to disappear,” Will says.

Maitake looks at Lila for instructions. “Just let them have him,” she snarls in frustration.

Maitake and his friend release Wolfgang and he immediately shoves away from them, a wild animal suddenly let out of a cage after a long confinement. He walks toward Lila.

“You could have been great, Wolfgang. I could have offered you alliances that would have made you invincible.”

Wolfgang’s eyes roam across them—Felix, Capheus, Kala, Will, Nomi, Riley. “I already am,” he says.

Kala finally releases Lila, who shakes herself free as fiercely as Wolfgang did. She’s a proud woman, used to being in control of every situation, and she thought she had a firm grasp of this one. But things have changed, and she’s been caught out unprepared. What’s coming soon for BPO and every one of their sensate collaborators will not be pleasant for her. Kala couldn’t give a damn.

“Felix, you idiot,” Wolfgang says fondly, grasping him firmly by the back of the neck. “What the hell are you doing mixed up in all this?”

“I couldn’t let you and your imaginary friends have all the fun,” he says, grinning.

Wolfgang turns to Kala.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi,” he replies.

There’s only a moment for Wolfgang and Kala to look at each other, for this long-dreamed-of moment to be real. But it’s enough, for now.

“Guys,” Will says. Not out loud, in Kala’s head. “Be ready to move.”

Maitake takes Lila by the arm when she reaches him. As they turn, Sun and Lito step into the doorway of the food hall, another silent warning to just go, without any trouble. This time, they do.

And then they’re all there. Wolfgang, Kala, Will, Riley, Sun, Lito, Capheus, and Nomi. There’s a moment to look at each other, each flesh and blood and only inches away.

“Glad to have you back, buddy,” Will says. “But we gotta move.”

“Where are we going?” Wolfgang asks.

They’re already moving, slipping in and out of the crowd, back down Brick Lane.

“Everybody have their exit plan?” Will asks. One by one, they nod. “Then we’ll see you on the other side.”

Then Will and Riley peel off to the left, disappearing into the crowd.

“Where are they going?” Wolfgang asks.

“The Tube.”

“This is us,” Nomi says, then she darts away to the right with Amanita.

“See you soon,” Capheus says before he disappears into the crowd.

“Be careful,” Sun says to Wolfgang, just before she and Lito leave, backtracking the way they’ve just come.

“We need to go.” Felix is gently but firmly clearing a path for Kala through the crowds. Wolfgang is close on her heels.

“Where are _we_ going?” he presses.

“We’re burning our footprints and getting out of London. It’s safer if we don’t all travel together. Capheus will bring our houseguests in Felix’s van and we’ll all meet back up at the next safe house.”

“Where is that?”

She reaches for his hand. It’s the first time she’s ever touched him, and it feels like coming home. His fingers, warm and strong, immediately grip hers, so hard it almost hurts. But it’s good. It’s the kind of firm grip that won’t let go, no matter what happens.

“We’re going to Paris,” she tells him, smiling.

He smiles, too, and Kala knows that no matter what they might be facing, it’s going to be okay. They would be okay—all of them—as long as they were together.

“Guess we don’t have to wait a year,” Wolfgang says, and they disappear into the crowd.


End file.
